Short-lived
minor league baseball team in
Danville,
Virginia. Played the
1998 season in the
Carolina League as an
Atlanta Braves farm team, co-habiting with the
Danville Braves of the
Appalachian League.
The team was never meant to stay in Danville; the Durham Bulls moved up to the International League, forcing the Carolina League franchise formerly known as the Bulls to leave town. Owner Miles Wolff decided to move the team to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, but the new stadium in MB wasn't going to be ready until 1999. So the CL franchise played 1998 in Danville, sharing a stadium with a fellow Braves farm club that was well within CL territory and didn't start its season until late June (like all Advanced Rookie leagues), then moved and became the Myrtle Beach Pelicans.
This team was named after an 1890s railroad accident involving the Southern Railway's No. 97 train which was memorialized in song.